


Ceremony of Innocence

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Community: smut_tuesdays, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-26
Updated: 2008-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 07:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>God, it had been so long, so many years of her on the other side of the wall, on the other side of the state line, on the other side of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ceremony of Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-"all things"  
> A/N: Happy [**smut_tuesdays**](http://community.livejournal.com/smut_tuesdays/)! You thought it would never happen again, but it did! Title and bits of the end are from W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming".   
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this and no infringement is intended.

Scully, worn out it seemed by the effort of confiding in him, of believing that the strange confluence of their lives had led them to each other, fell asleep on his couch. Mulder pulled the blanket over her and stroked her hair away from her mouth. Strange, to be able to touch her like this. He had dragged her naked from the alien ship. He had held her as she lay bloody and sobbing on the floor of his apartment. He had put his arms around her after Pfaster had locked her in a closet and he had touched her face after her father had died, but he had almost never touched her without a need for solace, neither of them in danger or dying.

Jet lag and her confession had exhausted him; he felt the gravid weightlessness of travel as an ache in his calves and his chest. He sat for a long time flexing his toes against the silence. In England it was midmorning, the sun leaning against the clouds over Stonehenge. It had been like going home to be in England. He had slid back into the accent, relished the grilled tomatoes at breakfast and the dark ale in the evening. Old friends had been happy to see him. He had been Mulder the golden again, with favors to call in. It seemed like a dream now, the memories of putting his hand on the immense rough stones and the flecks of green grass on his shoes, but that hadn't been as unreal as now, on his familiar couch in his familiar apartment with Scully asleep a few feet away. He leaned forward and picked up his cup and took a long swig of tepid tea, some herbal blend she'd bought in the interest of his health. Scully sighed and settled her head against his shoulder.

He was tired of being Mulder the crusader. It had been nice, for a few days, to be Mulder the charmingly eccentric again. To Scully he was something else entirely, something he couldn't pin down. There had been a moment he had been certain, in a hospital with his brain sizzling in his skull, captivated by the flush of sunburn on her cheeks, but after Diana, after this Daniel, he didn't know a thing anymore. Not about love, and not about Scully. Math had never been his strong suit, and he couldn't make the equation of their partnership balance out properly. She was the map and the treasure but the scale was beyond him.

If he had stayed, catching at dreams, he would not be here with her. He had yearned for her across the ocean when she wasn't there to purse her lips in chilly disapproval at the folly of his plans. Even next to her, he felt there was a gap between them, though less than there had been in the last few months. Mulder realized he had been staring into the glow of the aquarium for long enough that bubbles shimmered across his vision when he crooked his neck to look at Scully. Her hair had fallen across her mouth and he brushed it away. Her eyes flickered under the membrane of her lids and she stirred against his shoulder. She would be stiff if she slept here; she was made for finer things than the couch and the endless hunt. He nudged her head to the back of the couch and slid his arms under her. She murmured and turned her nose against his chest, surprisingly light in the cradle of his arms. She was thin lately with her misery about the in vitro. He worried about her, but that only lead to quarreling. They were both of them too stubborn for their own good. Too stubborn and too lonely and too used to it all to change, except that she was changing, had seen these things while he was gone, had opened up, and he was left behind looking after her.

At least he could do this, though it wasn't even a start at making up for the injustices and wounds he had caused her. He imagined her in the morning, staggering out of his room with her hair creased by the pillow, her smile half grateful and half wry: Mulder playing the martyr again.

He laid her down on his bed, rearranging the covers around her. Her shoes were under the coffee table, but he eased off her jacket and draped it over the foot of the bed. It had been a long time since he had done these domestic things. He lingered, making sure there was no other way to make her comfortable without suggesting too much intimacy; she was clinical about undressing him, but the thought of her skin in his bed undid him. He had taken too much of her privacy over the years. He wanted her, god, even just to sleep next to her would be a comfort, but she was stronger than need and he had asked too much of her. The only thing she had ever wanted from him, he hadn't been able to give.

Mulder turned to go and she caught his hand, her eyes open now. "Mulder," she said, and he was still for the first time in days, in years. Her fingers were warm in his.

"Scully?"

"Everything happens for a reason," she said, and shifted in the bed. He sat on the edge, slowly, warily, afraid he was dreaming, and she pushed herself up, kneeling in the pooled covers, and kissed him. Eight years' worth of fantasies spooled through his mind, none of them equal to the reality of really and truly kissing her, making the pivot of a new age instead of just a new year. His hands had come up to cup her cheeks somehow. She tasted of tea and her mouth was firm against his, urging, as if this weren't the first time and all those midnight dreams had been real. Her thumbs hooked under the hem of his shirt and her knees pressed against his thigh. She broke the kiss and he looked at her with wonder, her face out of focus at close range, her eyes dark.

"Scully?" he said again, his voice huskier than he'd hoped, and she kissed him again, her hands ghosting up his back, rucking cotton across his middle. He reached down and tugged his shirt off, ducking his head through the collar and catching her lips again. She hummed in approval and traced the line of his shoulderblades so that his skin came up in goosebumps. Her head dipped and she kissed the scar on his shoulder where her bullet had gone through; he shivered as the tip of her tongue touched the places that had feeling. His thumb skittered down the side of her neck and she leaned back, looking at him again.

"Please," she said, and god, the idea that she thought she had to _ask_ broke his heart. He bent over her, her tongue sliding over his, the edges of her teeth sharp against his lips. The room, usually so bare, seemed full of damp heat, like they were back in Florida or Puerto Rico, out in the wilds. She lifted her shirt and he skinned it off her as she wriggled out of her trousers. He half-folded and got up to drape them over the end of the bed with her jacket and she pursed her lips at him and unbuttoned his jeans, pushing the denim down over his hips as she knelt on the bed in front of him. He fell onto the bed, tugging her down onto his lap, her stomach flexing against his as she settled against him. He tucked her hair behind her ear, wanting to ask if this was really what she wanted, wanting to put his arms around her and hold her for days. She had a wistful, distant look and he stroked her back until her eyes came back to his.

"It's been so long," she said, and tucked her face against his neck, kissing the underside of his jaw. He exhaled, tingling, the jet lag forgotten but the feeling of weightlessness stronger than ever. God, it had been so long, so many years of her on the other side of the wall, on the other side of the state line, on the other side of the world. So many years of wanting her. So many years of thinking about the exquisite texture of her earlobe or the vein that he might trace on the back of her knee or the cramp in her toes after sex. He wanted to do everything all at once. He wanted to take it as slowly as possible. Her breasts were pressed against him and he felt for the clasp of her bra, kissing her shoulder where there was the pink mark of a strap. Her fingers played down his ribs, grazing the bone of his hip. Already all the blood in his body seemed to be in his balls; they were anchoring him to the bed, and when she touched him through the silk of his boxers, his breath hitched. He let his hands smooth down her body until he could curl two fingers under the fabric of her panties, his fingertips seeking out her cleft. She was slick already, her curls damp, and he dabbled his fingers back and forth from clit to entrance until she was panting against his neck. Her knees gripped his thighs so tightly it was almost painful, and his balls ached just thinking of sliding his fingers in her. He nudged her back, her mouth swollen with his kisses and her eyes dreamy, and put one arm behind her shoulders as he rubbed his cheek across the top of her breasts and took a nipple in his mouth. Her skin tasted like vanilla and salt as she arched her back, pushing her breast into his mouth. Her wordless little cries made his cock twitch, and he crooked his fingers faster, finally pushing up into her and reaching for the rough place that would make her scream. She came on a rising note that sounded surprised, her inner walls clenching around his hand, her body shaking. He pulled her tight against him, kissing her hair, her forehead as she clutched at his back.

She was trembling, so he leaned back, supporting them both, until they were in the middle of the bed and he could tug the covers over them. He tossed her bra to the foot of the bed. She was still wearing her knee-highs; he could feel the silky nylon as her calf slid between his. He pulled the covers up over her shoulders and she licked her lips, her tongue grazing his collarbone. Gradually her breathing evened and he settled his head on the pillows, his thumb rubbing over the back of her neck. He bit the inside of his cheek, willing his cock to stop throbbing. If she fell asleep, it would still be the best night he could remember. But then her hand was there inside the elastic of his boxers, tugging them down, and god, her hand on his cock was more stimulation than any alien mindfuck, and if he'd been drowsy at all, he wasn't now. He was holding her underwear in his hand and reaching over to the bedside table for a condom, hoping it wasn't expired. She shook her head as he held up the packet.

"Nothing between us," she said, and it was like seeing inside her mind all over again, the blinding epiphany.

"How much time I wasted," he said, and then stopped, and she pulled him down for a kiss. He cupped her breasts, his hand not big enough to hold both of them, and pulled onto his lap, guiding himself into her. She gasped, wriggling her hips, adjusting to him, and he was seeing stars already. He tried thinking about baseball, but he could only think about her chiding him as they swung the bat together. He tried thinking about swamp monsters, morgues, boring rental cars with untested back seats, but everything came back to her, and she was rolling her hips against his, urging him on, thank god, and her nails pricked along his spine as they moved together. Rain spattered against the window and it was Sunday night and how would he face her tomorrow and not say everything? But he was lost in the wet heat of her, lost in the dark of her eyes, lost in the taste of her mouth. Her moans were question marks and exclamation points and ampersands between his teeth, and and and, always asking more as he moved inside her and his fingers caressed her clit. All the gravity in the world was dragging at his balls, they were tight with needing her, and she was panting again, and all he could do was grate out her name in warning before his hips bucked and he was lost, green grass and rough stones and blue sky and her, the sum of the world. He crashed against her, his neck crooked over the headboard, sliding back down to earth. Her hands were tight around his ass and he pushed hard into her, fucking her with the last stiffness he had, and she gave a little yelp and buried her face in his shoulder, biting him as her orgasm took her and she rippled around his softening cock.

He wanted to tell her then, wanted to stay up until dawn murmuring back and forth over the pillow and discovering dimples and chicken pox scars, but he was asleep before he could find the words. In his dreams, he could feel the weight of her beside him: when he had her in the circle of his arms, he was safe. He dozed for a few hours, woke and found her watching him with cat's eyes, and was never sure he had not dreamed the way she moved her body against him, the way her leg hooked over his hip, the tenderness with which they brought each other to pleasure, gasping and vulnerable.

In the morning she was gone. He knew it before he fanned out his stiff fingers over the pillow that had been hers. But his lips were bruised and he found her knee-highs rolled up under the corner of the bed: she had been there. She would come back and they would talk, later, after work, when they could pretend they had escaped from scrutiny. The center would hold. The world hadn't ended.

It was Monday morning; he had notes to make for his file on crop circles, hoaxes, and pathetic attention-seekers of informants. They would bicker over something and drink bad coffee. She would disappear on a run, or to do an autopsy for some other department. He would buy her a toothbrush.

He whistled as he went to the shower.


End file.
